


as you are

by last



Category: BTOB
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-24
Updated: 2016-04-24
Packaged: 2018-06-04 02:59:37
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,262
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6638584
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/last/pseuds/last
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>there’s a boy with a golden smile who nobody in the world can see but ilhoon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	as you are

**Author's Note:**

> (a.k.a. imaginary friend au)
> 
> it’s... a short(er) fic? a change of pace and something a little different, i guess, and yet it still manages to span over ten years. i predict that i’ll be kind of busy during the next couple of months, so i don’t know when i’ll finish any of my longer wip’s. i wanted to post something beforehand though, so here is this. i hope it’s enjoyable, at any rate. ♡ it falls under a specific trope, but i don’t want to spoil it completely and you’ll know by the end. (and [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c-TvN1N8QII) is what i took the title from.)
> 
> btw, the correspondence between ages and grades is according to the korean system, in case there’s any confusion.

when ilhoon is four, hyunsik is six.

ilhoon’s first word is considered delayed by most, but it’s one that he’s known for quite a while now without telling anybody – it’s given to the boy standing in front of him with a yellow t-shirt and the most wonderful smile he’s ever seen.

it’s ‘hello’, and he says it right back.

“i’m hyunsik,” he continues and there’s something about him, rather kind and sweet, that has ilhoon look up at him without wondering how he even got here in his room. “what’s your name?”

he gets on his feet, and hyunsik is still a good number of inches taller than him, “ilhoon.”

“would you like to be my friend, ilhoon?” hyunsik asks, extending an arm.

ilhoon nods, and before he knows it the frown on his face has vanished. hyunsik’s the first friend he’s ever made despite the number of kids at kindergarten, his hand is holding his, and ilhoon’s never smiled like this at anyone or anything before in his life.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is five, hyunsik is seven.

hyunsik goes everywhere that ilhoon does. he sits with him on the backseats during car rides while minjoo sits at the front, he talks to him about the sky or the ocean that he’s still yet to see with his own two eyes. hyunsik says goodnight to him every time he climbs into bed at the end of the day, when mom has already come and gone, and it’s only then that he can go to sleep peacefully.

ilhoon doesn’t really know why that is, but he’d certainly miss it if it stopped, like he’d miss hyunsik if he went away altogether. it’s just natural that he’s here now.

mom keeps saying that ilhoon seems like such a cheerful child now, and that he’s always smiling or laughing about something that she never has any idea what. hyunsik’s funny and the coolest – that’s why. he can make any day a good one with just the flash of his smile, he plays along with everything ilhoon says and does. he’s his number one fan no matter what.

but above all, hyunsik’s his best friend and he’s got everything that he could want in one.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is six, hyunsik is eight.

ilhoon moves on from kindergarten and starts school although he dreads it. he attends every single day like a perfect student, but that’s only because he has to. it’s not that he’s struggling though – he’s actually rather far from it. it’s the other children that get him down and he doesn’t quite understand why, why they do the things they do, why they say the things they say to him.

out on the playground, all of the kids find it _weird_ that ilhoon doesn’t care for kicking balls and running around when he’s a boy and that’s what they like. they ask him why he tries to stay indoors, on his own, so he can read when that’s what they do in class.

but they’re wrong – he’s not alone, not ever. hyunsik always pulls up a chair and sits with him even now, even if he’s not in the same grade as him.

“what are you reading today?” he asks with the side of his face resting in his palm.

ilhoon lifts the book up off of the table to show him the cover, “ _guess how much i love you_.”

“should i?”

“what?”

that’s never crossed ilhoon’s mind before, the possibility that he loves hyunsik. he knows that he loves mom, dad, minjoo too, even when she’s teasing him for no reason. but there are butterflies in his stomach and an unfamiliar feeling in his heart right now, and he can’t seem to come up with an answer for hyunsik.

there’s a line in this book that goes, “i love you right up to the moon – and back,” and that’s perhaps the closest thing to the way he realises he feels.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is seven, hyunsik is nine.

dinner is always as three now with dad working abroad in china. ilhoon hasn’t seen him since last year and, every night, it’s been too quiet in the dining room during his absence. minjoo tends to talk the most because she’s eleven and when kids are eleven they get to do bigger and better things with their time, ilhoon figures and he’s slightly envious. all he does is learn how to spell words that he already knows.

mom is staring at him from across the table and, considering how he hasn’t said so much as a word yet tonight, she eventually asks, “who are you always talking to, ilhoon?”

his eyes are fixed on his rice at first, but he’d figured that she’d bring it up someday and he actually replies, “hyunsik-hyung.”

“a friend of yours?” she suggests with a smile.

“that’s his imaginary friend,” minjoo interrupts. “his best friend, i mean.”

“i see,” she nods and turns back to ilhoon, a sort of enthusiasm in her words. “what’s he like?”

“nice,” he starts, but he suddenly realises he doesn’t quite know the words to describe hyunsik yet. maybe there’s a word out there that exists to perfectly capture the kind of person who likes everything about you and they make you all happy on the inside without trying, but the only one he can think of is, “good.”

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is eight, hyunsik is ten.

as his classmates pick him last for basketball again, hyunsik reassures ilhoon that it doesn’t matter. they don’t matter, and nothing they’ve ever done or said to him has. they don’t bother passing the ball to him even once, but it’s not that he isn’t too busy talking to hyunsik anyway, as much as he actually tried to play at first.

hyunsik tells him he’s doing great when all he’s done is stand in the same spot since the game started, and he knows it’s a big fat lie but he can’t help but be at least a little bit happy that there’s somebody who thinks so. (even if it’s hyunsik and he thinks whatever ilhoon does is incredible, goes along with every last idea he has including the bad ones before they both realise that that’s what they are. and even then he never truly believes that they were terrible to begin with.)

“ilhoon,” the teacher waits for him as he’s the last to leave the gym as usual. “you’re alright, aren’t you? if there’s ever anything wrong, you can tell me, or another adult.”

“i’m okay,” he replies and he’s still smiling despite everything because he actually is, because he’s got hyunsik and he’s the only one in the world who has ever been able to make things better. no adult could ever understand what hyunsik can, nobody else could ever be him.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is nine, hyunsik is eleven.

ilhoon begins learning how to play the piano as an alternative to joining a sports team, at the suggestion of his teacher, and hyunsik’s already a musical genius and has been for years. he’s been playing the piano since he started school and he even plays the guitar now, or so he says but ilhoon doesn’t have one so hyunsik can’t show him and prove it. he believes him though, like he trusts everything else that leaves that mouth of his. it’s the same one that’s responsible for that smile after all.

“you’re getting really good at this,” hyunsik says while sitting next to ilhoon on the stool.

but he frowns at him, lightly drags his fingers over the keys while doing so, and insists, “it’s just not perfect enough yet.”

“it doesn’t have to be,” hyunsik replies. “you’re on your way, hoonie, and you’re going to get there. i know it.”

ilhoon hopes to be as amazing as hyunsik someday, but in the meantime he takes a break, lets him play the piece exactly how it’s supposed to sound and listens to every single note with his undivided attention.

and he loves each second of it, and he loves hyunsik far more than anything else he’s ever known.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is ten, hyunsik is twelve.

ilhoon doesn’t seem to grow quite as quickly as the other boys in his class. he’s lagging a bit in comparison, and hyunsik’s gotten so tall now that he’s like a tower next to ilhoon. little by little, his voice has started to change too – it’s becoming deeper and there’s something about it that sounds kind of _good_ to ilhoon, in a way that makes his skin tingle even though it sounds so comforting that it probably shouldn’t. it’s perhaps true that he’s the only one who can hear it, but there’s an odd satisfaction in that – a selfishness that he’s the only one lucky enough to know that hyunsik exists.

“it’s gotten lower again,” he tells ilhoon when it’s dropped very slightly once more. “is it weird?”

ilhoon shakes his head, “no, i actually like it.”

“really?”

“yeah,” he nods. “when i get older, will you still like my voice too?”

“mhm!” hyunsik smiles wider and sits up taller. “i’ll always like it, hoonie. i like everything about you.”

“i... i like you too, hyung,” ilhoon admits and he doesn’t think he’s supposed to, but he does and he’s not lying at all. it’s as if he can’t help it, and how could he when hyunsik’s the only person who’s ever made his heart beat faster for no reason that he can figure out other than the kind that he’d be teased for if anyone else found out.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is eleven, hyunsik is thirteen.

they say that it’s strange to have a friend that nobody else can see or hear, especially at this age and beyond when everything’s starting to change at such a rapid pace. there’s all of this talk about becoming adults and a thing called ‘puberty’, and ilhoon’s expected to smoothly move forwards into what he’s barely been prepared for. they say that growing up is a fun thing, an exciting time, but it seems daunting above all else, even if hyunsik insists that it’s not so bad once it starts.

“he’s not real,” ilhoon’s sitting on his bed and mom right next to him, and she’s decided that she should have a word with him today – one that she’s been putting off until now. “you know that, don’t you?”

“what makes you think that?” ilhoon asks back because she’s wrong.

“he’s just in your head, baby,” she tells him, and pushes the hair from his eyes. “he’s your imagination, and you’re eleven now. you’re going to be growing up and—”

“i don’t have any other friends, mom,” he says before she can finish, and he watches her cheerful facade disappear before hanging his head low. “i thought you knew that.”

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is twelve, hyunsik is fourteen.

hyunsik stays in ilhoon’s head from now on, where he supposedly belongs, but he’s always there and has his back when he needs him the most – when he has doubts building up in his mind or he’s feeling down for whatever unknown reason. he can still make him smile like nothing else ever has, even in the darkest of times and during the moments he feels the lowest, when he started middle school and he was as friendless as he had been the year before.

ilhoon’s gotten better and better at the piano too, and maybe someday he’ll be able to play by ear like hyunsik and make him proud of that. he doesn’t quite have it in him to join the music club, because that means throwing himself into a bunch of strangers and he’s shy enough as it is, but he spends what time he can on practising like there’s nothing else he’d rather do.

it’s like it’s all that he cares to do now except eat, sleep and talk to hyunsik, and he knows that he’s not the best but that doesn’t matter, remember.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is thirteen, hyunsik is fifteen.

there’s a boy who’s a year younger and takes a shine to ilhoon when he catches him playing the piano in the music room during a break. he says his name is sungjae and that he’s always wanted to learn too, but his parents aren’t so big on the idea so he’s never even touched a key before. he’s got eyes like a fox and the kind of smile that gives off the impression that he’s constantly up to something, scheming in his mind.

“why are you always by yourself?” he asks with his head slightly tilted and his elbow resting against the piano.

ideally, ilhoon would say that he’s not, but a better reply to a complete stranger is probably, “because i like it.”

“isn’t it lonely?”

“no,” ilhoon shakes his head and he doesn’t think so at all. “i don’t ever feel that way.”

“how come?”

“because,” he starts and there’s already something about sungjae that has him feeling as if he can let him in on this, that he won’t laugh or find it silly and a reason to tease him like most kids would. “because i have a friend.”

“what kind of friend?” sungjae asks and the questions never seem to end.

“one that nobody else can see or hear.”

“that’s so _cool_ ,” he replies with a wide grin. the way he says it seems like he means it and, with that, sungjae becomes ilhoon’s second official friend without him even trying.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is fourteen, hyunsik is sixteen.

hyunsik’s nothing but a gentle voice in ilhoon’s head now – he can’t see him anymore – but somehow he still thinks of him as the most important thing he’s ever known. he imagines the best he can that he’s gotten pretty handsome now, that he looks like the type of person who would make him blush if their eyes locked for so much as a second. he’s got the same smile as he always has, of course – the one that has his eyes smile just as hard as his mouth that ilhoon’s never gotten tired of seeing after all of these years.

he still loves hyunsik the most when he talks to him, still feels a wave of sheer happiness come over him when he does, even if there’s somebody else sitting in front of him.

“what are you smiling about this time?” sungjae asks over lunch in the cafeteria.

“nothing,” ilhoon takes a bite out of his apple and it’s unexpectedly sour. he scrunches up his nose, and hyunsik lets out a quiet laugh at that.

“your friend?” sungjae suggests.

“maybe,” ilhoon shrugs at him, and they continue eating without any further questions for once.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is fifteen, hyunsik is seventeen.

sungjae is still in middle school when ilhoon starts high school, and he suddenly needs hyunsik more than he ever has before. all he can seem to do these days is tell ilhoon that everything is and will be okay, he swears, that it’s becoming more difficult for him to get to him, but he’s trying his very best despite that.

hyunsik’s voice is starting to fade like his face and nobody had ever warned ilhoon that this would happen. if he had known, maybe he could have prepared himself just a little, but he hasn’t and he’s more lost in this new world than he thinks he can handle.

icebreakers have always been his worst nightmare whenever meeting new people – that and the rolling eyes, obviously bored silences, to name a few on his list – and all that happens during these is his mouth drying up as he shares that he likes dogs and plays the piano to not one person in the entire class that could care less. he sits back down again and hopes for the floor to do him a favour by opening up and swallowing him whole.

he doesn’t have a clue how he’s making it through each of these sessions alive. part of him is wishing that he wasn’t, that his misery would end already, but another is thankful if it means he’s surviving despite everything. perhaps he’s stronger than he had estimated.

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is sixteen, hyunsik is eighteen.

the voice in ilhoon’s head is gone now. he’s still got his own, of course, cursing at him each time he messes up or trying to recall the things he used to hear, but he’d trade it to have hyunsik’s back in a heartbeat, any day of the year. at least sungjae’s here now and he makes it all a bit easier – ilhoon doesn’t have to sit alone for lunch or ask to join a table taken by a bunch of strangers anymore – although not easy enough that it isn’t tearing him up on the inside that he’s missing the one thing he’s had with him for over ten years.

“you’ve seemed pretty down since the year started,” sungjae says between sips from his juice box. “if there’s something the matter—”

“there isn’t.”

“okay,” he tosses the carton into a nearby trashcan, and turns to ilhoon with a serious look in his eyes. “but if there is—”

“i’m fine. really.”

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is seventeen, hyunsik is nineteen.

by some completely unpredicted chance, because he’s never been a lucky one, ilhoon’s recruited by the local bookstore he used to frequent a couple of years ago. he’s working upstairs in their coffee shop and it’s not the most suitable job for him by any means, but it’s at least something towards his soon and very much inevitable tuition fees. he’s still nervous about everything, and all that he’s got is himself now.

he ties his apron around his waist, fixes the hat on his head, and he’s good to go.

he spends the morning getting the hang of working the register on his own and taking orders with what he hopes is a convincing smile on his face, and is given his break in time for a normal lunch. before he goes, there’s another customer who’s snuck up to the counter. or so he assumes.

“excuse me,” he says and his voice makes ilhoon freeze on the spot – but it’s not out of fear, no, but a rather odd feeling of familiarity, an old friend coming back again. “ilhoon?” he calls out, and he’s met with a look of pure surprise. “ah—sorry—i was reading your nametag.”

and ilhoon reads his. it says ‘hyunsik’.

 

 

 

 

(ilhoon becomes a linguistics major once spring comes around although it isn’t his dream, and hyunsik’s a practical music one, a pianist too by a wild coincidence. ilhoon would be as well if he hadn’t let what he had learned dwindle over the past few years, if he didn’t grow to fear that he wasn’t good enough again in hyunsik’s absence.

but he’s here now, and maybe ilhoon can make it out of this alive despite every doubt he’s had in his mind since he disappeared.)

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is eighteen, hyunsik is twenty.

through a friendship that has steadily grown for a second time, hyunsik eventually asks ilhoon out. it’s a simple invitation to dinner after friday’s classes.

it’s at a restaurant he’s never heard of let alone been to before, and being here feels oddly grown up although he’s drinking lemonade out of a wine glass while hyunsik has the real thing. he doesn’t really care though, find it funny or childish. he just eats his pasta and talks to ilhoon like he does while they’re on lunch breaks at work, about the parts of their lives that they haven’t shared with each other yet, or their day and what’s happened during the time they’ve been apart.

and it’s an empty feeling inside of ilhoon whenever he thinks about how much he’s missed despite loving hyunsik for so long, for far longer than he even knows.

hyunsik walks ilhoon back to his dorm. it’s a slow journey to delay the inevitable goodbye for the night, and it’s dark enough for hyunsik to hold his hand without anyone else caring as they make their way through the city. that alone makes ilhoon’s heart race.

standing outside of the entrance to the building now, there’s a quiet conversation between them – the kind that’s shared just to keep a moment from ending, to make it last. and hyunsik leans in close before they finally part ways. he gives ilhoon a kiss and spirals in his mind, dizzying, like nothing he’s ever felt before.

 

 

 

 

(whenever hyunsik calls his name, sometimes when he’s teaching him how to play the piano again, ilhoon has vivid visions in his head – of a hyunsik younger than this, fourteen or fifteen years old, his hair a shade of brown that he had dyed it for a while.

there could never be another hyunsik. his smile is the same as the one ilhoon’s always known, right from the moment that the two of them had met. and, yes, life can be full of coincidences, but this can’t be one of them, surely. not when everything about hyunsik matches up with what ilhoon remembers so perfectly.)

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is nineteen, hyunsik is twenty-one.

they live together now, in the apartment hyunsik’s been living in since his second year of college. it isn’t huge – it’s got one bed and that’s enough for them.

they lie there every night, ilhoon in hyunsik’s arms and they’re warm like the rest of him and not as unfamiliar anymore. sometimes this still doesn’t even seem real though, because ilhoon’s always been imagining this, hyunsik, a love affair that didn’t exist until now.

ilhoon doesn’t exactly bother telling hyunsik that he's spent almost his entire life in love with him, as much as he’s dying to every time they’re together. he supposes there’s no clever way to explain that he had imagined him as a kid and somehow, by some kind of miracle, actually met him in reality. at this point he knows most of his secrets, sure, but there’s a fear holding ilhoon back, reminding him that he was the only one who had truly believed in the two of them, together, before all of this.

he just closes his eyes in the darkness, rests his head on hyunsik’s chest and feels it rise and fall with his near silent breathing, listens to his heart beat slowly and it reminds him that at least what he has now is real.

 

 

 

 

(ilhoon discovers an old photo album in one of the bedroom drawers while hyunsik is still out at work – his new work since graduating. he flips through the pages with hesitation, as if he’s intruding into his memories although this is their home, not just hyunsik’s, and he’s told him what’s his is his too. there are pictures from his childhood, from a small child to a somewhat larger one.

and ilhoon’s fingertips tremble as he recognises almost each and every stage of hyunsik’s life, one flashback after another.)

 

 

 

 

when ilhoon is twenty, hyunsik is twenty-two.

it’s coming to the end of another year and the same old thoughts and nagging feelings are floating around ilhoon’s mind even now. they shouldn’t matter – he knows that – not when they’re together right at this very moment and nothing’s telling him that it’ll change just yet.

but he’s known hyunsik for longer than this, longer than only these three years. that he still believes more than most things in the world because, imaginary or not, he can’t have been mistaken about this. not when hyunsik has always been the biggest part of his life, the one thing he’s tried his hardest to never forget about, and him not knowing this will haunt him forever if he lets it.

“do you think... do you think that there’s such thing as fate,” ilhoon’s reluctant to ask him at all. “or soulmates. those kinds of things.”

there’s no immediate answer. hyunsik sits there and thinks to himself, perhaps for a way to let ilhoon’s hopes down easy if he doesn’t believe so.

“sorry, i don’t know why i asked.”

“no, don’t be,” hyunsik insists, and he turns to look at him. “i’ve been wondering myself, actually.”

“yeah? i’ve just always thought about it, i guess. the possibility that everybody has a person who they’re supposed to be with,” ilhoon admits, although this is only scratching the surface, if even that.

“me too,” hyunsik says against, essentially, all odds at the back of ilhoon’s mind. “you never really know since the world is a strange place. i believe it, though.”

and ilhoon nods, slightly relieved to hear it, “so do i.”

as he figures out a way to dig further into this, tries to find the best way to bring up every last memory of him that he’s held onto for years now, hyunsik flashes him a smile – a soft and gentle one that he’s never lost, one that tells him it’s okay, it really is.

“hoonie,” he simply calls out, and that’s a nickname ilhoon hasn’t heard in far too long. “i love you right up to the moon – and back.”

 

 

 

 

when hyunsik was six, ilhoon was four.

there was a small boy sitting in the corner of his room, a dubious look on his face, and he was shy when hyunsik asked for his name.

but once the frown had disappeared and something much brighter had taken its place, hyunsik decided right there and then that he could try to spend his life making sure that he would always smile like that.


End file.
